


The Girlfriend

by Bruce J (HowNovel)



Series: Star Return [2]
Category: Starman (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-04-19
Updated: 1997-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowNovel/pseuds/Bruce%20J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever happened to Kelly Jordan, Scott's girlfriend in "One For The Road" (Episode 7)?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

> **The Star Return Series:** Introduction  
>  By Bruce J.
> 
> One television season. Twenty-two episodes, twenty-two stories. Twenty-two hours of STARMAN that inspired countless stories, poems, essays, filks, and letters. They created a family, first with the cast and crew, and later including the fans. Spotlight STARMAN, the campaign to renew STARMAN, started as that: a letter-writing effort to convince ABC that it had made a dreadful mistake by canceling the show. It grew into an international cast of thousands that span the globe east and west, north and south.
> 
> There are many fine points about STARMAN (see “What’s This Spotlight STARMAN All About?” for details). The five principal actors—Robert Hays, C. B. Barnes, Michael Cavanaugh, Patrick Culliton, and Erin Gray—were all outstanding in their roles, and much has been written about these characters. But STARMAN was also notable for its guest cast—a vast array of talent that fleshed out the main character storyline in a remarkable and touching way. Many of these characters have also been highlighted in story and song since the campaign began in 1987.
> 
> A few years back, Sheeplady and Desertgal had an idea—to revisit these characters and see how their lives have been changed by what we saw happen to them on the small screen. They envisioned this as a reunion journey, with Paul and Scott coming back to the places they visited in that season. I have left that element out of these stories—Starman, Scott, Fox, Wylie, and Jenny are found only peripherally on these pages. The stories belong to the guest characters alone—and as you will see, each has a compelling tale to tell about the influence of one gentle and wise being on them. Otherwise, I’m sticking loosely to the format that Desertgal proposed to Joyce. Desertgal sums up the purpose of these stories thusly: “to see how Paul's visit has changed the lives of the people he encountered. This must be the major theme of all the stories. But maybe a person's life hasn't changed. This would still make an interesting story. The idea is to see how these people are living now.”
> 
> Desertgal suggested a three-year interval for the stories; this is something else I haven’t followed: some of the stories occur years after the episode, others concurrent with the episode or just after it. Hopefully the substance of the story is vastly more important than when it happens. Desertgal also notes that the stories are not supposed to be conflict-oriented, with captures and car chases. But they may help resolve a new or old problem for the people Starman and Scott visited. Each story is to be about solely one episode’s characters, without characters from multiple episodes mingling, which is why there are twenty-two stories.
> 
> In this effort I am not only indebted to Joyce and Desertgal for having the idea in the first place, but I also feel that honors are due for the people who have done this sort of thing before. Jean L. S penned an excellent zine similar to this early on in the campaign, and notable authors Joyce F, Vicki W, Gayle H, and Lil S have written excellent stories in this vein. I gratefully acknowledge their permission to use their stories as a springboard for what happens on these pages. I’d also like to thank my boss for giving me permission to write while I was working, which gave me a double bonus. (I could humorously add this is the only time I’ve been paid for doing STARMAN work.) Due to this most of the stories were written the old-fashioned way, in longhand, and then typed during spare hours here and there. (Like the rest of my longhand, the originals are mostly illegible. Sigh.)
> 
> Thanks are also due to Vicki and Todd A for fielding ideas and top-notch editing. In closing I’m going to invoke the epithet that Jean used in her zine: “Now, go! Read what you paid for!”
> 
> Bruce J

07 “One For The Road” The Girlfriend

By Bruce J.  
1997

_Author’s note: this story is based on the episode and the story “A Picture Worth a Thousand Words” by L.E. Sibley, which appeared in the 1993 fanzine “Amazing Variety.” Referenced with permission. Thanks, L.E.!_

 

Kelly Jordan laid on her bed on her stomach, her legs crossed and up in the air, her arms cradling the book she was supposed to read for class—Shakespeare’s “A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream.” She smirked—despite all that had happened today, the only thing she wanted to dream about was Scott Hayden. Her mind was a million miles from homework. The unpleasant events of the day—especially the confrontation with that Fox man from the government—lingered like a bad taste in her mouth. She shook her head, still incensed by the outrageous questions that guy had asked. “Are you currently using any form of birth control?” The nerve!

“Kelly!” Her mother called.

 _What now?_ Kelly wondered. Hadn’t she been through enough today? “Coming, Mom,” she yelled back reluctantly. She groaned as she got up. “What is it?”

“Eric Baker’s here to see you.”

Kelly perked up. She’d been planning to talk to Eric tomorrow at school because that abominable Mr. Fox had said he was interviewing Eric too. This was even better than meeting at school though—much more private and away from the prying eyes and ears in the hallways. She couldn’t wait to “compare notes” and find out what Fox had asked—and told—Eric.

Eric was waiting for her by the front door, self-consciously looking down at the floor and with his hands in the pockets of his letter jacket—the same jacket Fox had brandished at Kelly just a couple of hours ago. Eric looked up at the sound of footfalls. “Hi, Kelly.”

“Hi Eric. I’m sorry for how I treated you earlier. I was just upset about Scott leaving.”

“That’s okay.” Eric shifted uncomfortably. “Ah, would you like to go for a walk?”

Kelly understood Eric’s desire for privacy completely—especially if Fox had asked Eric the same kind of questions he asked her! She turned to the kitchen “Mom, Eric and I are going for a walk. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Her mom’s voice floated back from the kitchen. “Okay, honey.”

Kelly put on a light jacket and followed Eric out into the cool of the evening. When the door closed behind them Eric turned to her. “Did a government guy come to see—“

“—Fox.” Kelly interjected.

Eric looked like he was going to explode while they crossed the lawn to the sidewalk. “You wouldn’t believe what he asked me!”

Kelly laughed derisively. “Oh, I believe it.”

Eric lowered his voice. “Fox asked me if I was—if I was _gay!_ —and asked if I’d—if I had—“ he couldn’t even get the words out.

“If you had sex with Scott?”

Eric turned pink. “Yes! If the guys on the team found out—they’d tease me—they’d turn their backs on me—they’d probably beat me up!”

Kelly nodded. “Fox asked me the same thing. He even asked me if I was using birth control! I’m sure he thinks I’m pregnant with Scott’s child.”

Eric huffed. “It’s outrageous! Who does he think he is—and why is asking about stuff like that? What’d Scott do?”

“I don’t know. But at least we know now why Scott couldn’t finish the race.”

“No doubt! If I had a guy like that after me, I’d run too!”

“When Scott was reluctant toward me, I just thought it was me.” Kelly shook her head. “No wonder Scott has a hard time making friends.”

“Yeah. And I couldn’t get Fox tell me _why_ Scott was wanted. He just kept rattling some stuff about ‘national security.’ But what would _that_ have anything to do with our having sex with Scott?”

“Nothing that I can think—“

“Look out!” Eric yelled. While they were walking, a car had rounded the corner at a dangerously high rate of speed. Now it was barreling right at them, the headlights catching their frightened faces head-on. Eric pushed Kelly out of the way. She stumbled and Eric fell over almost on top of her. He grabbed her and rolled to the right. The car jumped the curb and shot by right where they’d been standing just a second ago. The car impacted into a tree trunk with a horrific crunch and the shriek of twisting metal and the tinkling of busting glass.

Eric was breathing like he’d just finished a race. “Jeeze!”

Kelly was frozen in Eric’s arms, a scream lodged in her throat.

Eric jumped up and raced around the smoking car to the driver’s side door. He tried to pull it open but the crash had jammed it. He crouched over, trying to see inside the car in the dim glow of a nearby streetlight. He could just make out the silhouette of the driver slumped over the steering wheel. He looked over to where a shaken and frightened Kelly had just regained her feet. “Get help! I think he’s hurt!”

Kelly nodded dazedly and ran up the stairs of the house. Before she even got to the porch the light came on and the door flew open. Kelly recognized the woman coming out as Alice Smith, a neighbor she knew from church.

Alice recognized her too and took Kelly’s arms into her hands. “Kelly? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Kelly said, with a glance back at the wreck. _Thanks to Eric’s quick thinking,_ she added to herself. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “The man in the car’s hurt, though.”

“Kevin is calling 911 now.”

Kelly remembered that that was Mr. Smith’s name. She nodded.

“Do you want to sit down, dear? You look pretty shaken up.”

Kelly shook her head. “I’ll be alright. Let’s see if we can help.” They hurried down the steps and around the car. Eric had given up on trying to open the door and was trying break through the window with his elbow. He rammed it hard against the safety glass and it splintered, but didn’t break.

“Careful, Eric,” Kelly admonished. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I won’t.” He clinched his teeth and tried again. The glass splintered more and his elbow broke through. He extricated it and tore the glass with his hands.

“Don’t cut yourself.”

“He’s bleeding,” Eric grunted. “Got a cut on his head.”

Kelly could hear the wail of sirens coming. She placed her hand on Eric’s shoulder to restrain him. “The paramedics will be here in a minute. They’ll help him.”

“If he doesn’t die first,” Eric kicked the car’s door in frustration.

“We’d better get back,” Mrs. Smith cautioned. “I can smell gas leaking.”

Kelly could smell it too. She backed away, pulling Eric with her. They formed a huddle on the sidewalk and waited. It couldn’t have been more than a minute before the paramedics arrived, but it seemed like an eternity to Kelly. A fire truck pulled up behind the ambulance and two police cruisers soon joined them, one from each direction.

The next few minutes were a burst of frantic but well-coordinated activity. The firemen hosed down the car and used the “Jaws of Life” to open the jammed door. The paramedics then rushed in. The victim was coming to now and they urged him to be still. In moments he was howling, incoherently but obviously from pain.

The rest was a blur to Kelly. She caught bits of it as she and Eric watched the emergency personnel handle the situation.

“—intoxicated—”

“—morphine I.M.—”

“—use the backboard. Possible spinal injury—”

“—three sheets to the wind, alright. Blood alcohol double the legal limit—”

One of the paramedics found the victim’s wallet and flipped it open. “Joe Connell.” The policeman next to him took down the name and hollered to one of his companions. Eventually the man was eased out of the car, strapped down to a board with his neck immobilized. Kelly and Eric went over to see him.

He was clearly still in great pain. He moaned softly and looked up. “Scott’s girlfriend,” he croaked, as his eyes settled on Kelly’s face.

Eric gave Kelly a sharp look. “How does he know?”

Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know him.”

The paramedics whisked him away. The supervising policeman came over to Kelly and Eric. “You kids alright?”

They nodded.

“Did you know Mr. Connell?”

Kelly shook her head. “No, but he seems to know me. I don’t why or how.” She nodded over to Connell, who was being loaded into the ambulance. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He’s going to the hospital. When he’s released he’ll be charged with driving under the influence and driving on a revoked license.”

Kelly bit her lip. “He was drunk?”

“Sure was. Not the first time, either. He’s got four prior convictions in other states—one for reckless driving and three D.U.I.’s. Can you tell me what you saw?”

While Kelly and Eric told him what had happened, Mrs. Smith went in and called Kelly and Eric’s parents. They arrived within moments of each other, right as a tow truck was starting to pull the damaged car out of the Smith’s tree.

Mrs. Jordan ran up to Kelly and cupped Kelly’s face in her hands. “Kelly sweetheart, are you okay?”

“Yes, just tired. It’s been a long day.” Eric’s parents were fussing over him, too, and he was trying to brush them off gracefully. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Eric,” Kelly called to him. He nodded and headed off with his parents. Kelly did the same. She looked back, once and briefly, at the wounded tree, and shivered.

****

Kelly met Eric after track practice the next day. She had suggested to him at lunch that they go to the hospital and try to talk to Connell. Kelly was itching to find out how Connell knew her and knew that she’d been Scott’s girlfriend. Eric was curious also.

He wanted to walk there and Kelly agreed. It was only a few blocks but Kelly found herself getting winded by Eric’s pace. He was clearly in much better physical shape than she was. Of course he ran and could do a hundred sit-ups while she was lucky if she could run around the track once and squeeze out twenty sit-ups.

Eric seemed happy, though, and Kelly noticed for the first time that he was kinda cute—not in the same way that Scott was cute, but in his own way.

“I love to walk after I run,” he enthused. “It’s relaxing.”

Kelly thought it was more work than relaxation, but just smiled at him. By the time they got to the hospital Kelly’s legs were cramping. _I’ve got to exercise more!_

Fortunately, they took the elevator to the ICU, not the stairs.

“He’s not too coherent,” the nurse cautioned. “He’s on morphine and he has a hell of a hangover.”

It was a good thing she forewarned him. Connell was barely lucid. He was mumbling what sounded like pure gibberish. “Forrester…new under the sun.”

Kelly’s ears perked up. Forrester was Scott’s dad’s name. “Excuse me? Did you know Paul Forrester?”

Connell became agitated. “Like nothing on this Earth…like _The Day the Earth Stood Still._ ”

He wasn’t making sense. “What?”

“Had to be…from beyond this world…nothing human could do that…blue glow…ohhhh.”

Kelly felt a strange sensation creeping up the skin of her back. “From beyond this world?” _What did he mean by that? Surely he didn’t mean that—that—_

“Is he still drunk?” Eric wondered.

A dazzling but confusing awareness was dawning in Kelly’s mind. “Think about it…if it’s true, that’s why Scott _had_ to run away…and why Fox is after him and his dad.”

“But that’s impossible!” Eric protested. “Are you saying that Scott is…is…” the improbable word finally spilled from his mouth. “Alien?”

Kelly’s mind was racing. If Scott’s father was alien, Scott was probably alien too…and _if_ she had sex with him, and _if_ she got pregnant with his child…her mouth dropped open. _Now_ she understood why Fox had asked those questions. She grabbed Eric’s arm. “ _That’s_ why Fox asked us about sex!”

“But he was human!”

 _Nothing human could do that_. Connell’s words chilled Kelly to the core. “What if they just _look_ human? Haven’t you ever seen _Invasion of the Body Snatchers?_ If I did have Scott’s child, it would be alien too—or at least half-alien.”

“But what about me? I can’t get pregnant!”

She smiled wryly. “With aliens, who knows? Maybe he’d lay an egg in your stomach. Fox was probably just covering his bases.”

Eric was thinking, too. “Now that you mention it, Scott went through the hole in the back fence yesterday, and when I went by today, the hole was fixed. I thought someone at the school fixed it.”

Connell babbled again. “Fence…zipped up…blue glow in his hand.”

Kelly was trying to follow him. “He did something to the fence?”

Connell nodded. “Closed up.”

Kelly didn’t understand completely, and the nurse came in then and shooed them out, saying that Connell needed to rest.

But Kelly and Eric came back the next day, and Connell was able to tell them the whole story.

****

It was the first time Kelly had stood before the whole student body, and she felt a little nervous and dry in the throat. But a sea of familiar faces reassured her. She wouldn’t have done this if it weren’t so important. She hoped everyone would listen…and remember. She glanced at Mrs. Madison, who smiled and nodded encouragingly.

Kelly looked down at her notes. She had planned to begin “my fellow students” but that sounded way too imperious now. She simplified. “Hi. I’m Kelly Jordan. We’re at a great time in our lives…the greatest, in fact, because we have our whole future ahead of us. We’re at a time when we want to try new things and go in new directions…but we won’t get there if we make the wrong choices. One of the thing’s we're tempted to try now is alcohol…but drinking is one of the worst choices we can make.

“Underage drinking is one of the biggest problems facing kids our age. And if you drive while you’re drunk…well, I’m going to let my friend tell you about that.” She looked to the right, and the students turned their heads with her gaze, some of the craning their necks.

From the edge of the stage a wheelchair emerged from the curtain folds. Eric Baker was pushing it. He stopped by Kelly and turned the chair to face the audience. Kelly passed him the microphone and he handed it to the man in the chair.

“Hello. I’m Joe Connell.” His voice was gravelly. “I come to you today by invitation of my friends, Kelly and Eric, as a living example of what happens should you drink and drive. That’s what I did and now I’m paralyzed from the waist down. I have no control of my bodily functions and must wear a diaper. I’m also going to court next week for sentencing for driving under the influence and other charges that resulted from my accident.”

He shook his finger at the crowd of students. “Don’t end up like me…don’t drink…and if you do, don’t drive while you’re drunk.” He passed the mike back to Kelly, and Eric wheeled him offstage.

Kelly paused and scanned the audience. Judging from the expressions she saw, her little demonstration had the effect she desired. “Thank you, Joe.”

****

Over the next few months Kelly became aware that she was being watched. Those doing the observing were discreet but predictable, and Kelly soon got used to them—and became adept at spotting them. Almost exactly nine months to the day after Scott left the watchers disappeared as silently as they had come. Kelly reckoned that Mr. Fox was evidently satisfied now that she wasn’t with child.

As she was kissing Eric at the bus stop one night she decided the Scott Hayden affair didn’t matter much to her anymore…she had Eric and had come to the realization that it was much better to date an established kid at school rather than the new kid in town—although she did admit, and only to herself, that she’d take Scott Hayden back in a heartbeat—even if he _was_ an alien.

THE END

Some statistics about youth and drinking:

In 1997, 21 percent of the young drivers involved in fatal crashes had been drinking.

Alcohol is the number one drug problem among young people.

About 10 million current drinkers were under age 21 in 1995.

2.6 million teenagers don’t know that a person can die from an alcohol overdose.

Eight young people a day die in alcohol-related crashes.

Youth who drink alcohol are 7.5 times more likely to use any illicit drug, and 50 times more likely to use cocaine than young people who never drink alcohol.

During a typical weekend, an average of one teenager dies each in a car crash. Nearly 50 percent of those crashes involved alcohol.

Each year, students spend $5.5 billion on alcohol, more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee or books combined.

Poor grades are correlated with increased use of alcohol. Alcohol is implicated in more than 40% of all academic problems and 28% of all dropouts.

It is estimated that one of out of every 280 babies born today will die in a crash with an intoxicated driver.

Traffic crashes are the major cause of death for children in the age group 0-14. Almost one quarter of these deaths are alcohol related.

 

_For more information about drunk driving and underage drinking, visit the  
Mothers Against Drunk Driving website at http://www.madd.org._


End file.
